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About the Book
The decades-long military campaign for the American West is an endlessly fascinating topic, and award-winning author Jerome A. Greene adds substantially to this genre with Indian War Veterans: Memories of Army Life and Campaigns in the West, 1864-1898. Greene’s study presents the first comprehensive collection of veteran (primarily former enlisted soldiers’) reminiscences. The vast majority of these writings have never before seen wide circulation.
Indian War Veterans addresses soldiers’ experiences throughout the area of the trans-Mississippi West. As readers will quickly discover, the depth and breadth of coverage is truly monumental. Topics include recollections of fighting with Custer and the mutilation of the dead at Little Bighorn, the Fetterman fight, the Yellowstone Expedition of 1873, battles at Powder River and Rosebud Creek, fighting Crazy Horse at Wolf Mountains, Geronimo and the Apache wars, the Ute and Modoc wars, Wounded Knee, and much more. The remembrances also include selections as diverse as “Christmas at Fort Robinson,” “Service with the Eighteenth Kansas Volunteer Cavalry,” and “Chasing the Apache Kid.”
These carefully drawn recollections derive from a wide array of sources, including manuscript and private collections, veterans’ scrapbooks, obscure newspapers, and private veterans’ statements. A special introductory essay about Indian war veterans contains new material about their post-service organizations all the way into the 1960s.
Complimenting the riveting entries are dozens of previously unpublished photographs. Readers will additionally find a gallery of never-before-seen full-color plates displaying a wide variety of Indian War Veterans’ badges, medals, and associated materials.
No other book discusses the post-army lives of these men or presents their recollections of army life as thoroughly as Greene’s Indian War Veterans. This groundbreaking study will appeal to lay readers, historians, site visitors and interpreters, Civil War and Indian wars enthusiasts, collectors, museum curators, and archeologists.
Reviews
"A treasure-trove of original sources on the Indian wars, an essential addition to every library on the subject." --Paul A. Hutton, University of New Mexico, and the author of "Phil Sheridan and his Army" and "The Custer Reader."
Jerome A. Greene is a retired historian with the National Park Service. He is the author or editor of many books, including Battles and Skirmishes of the Great Sioux War, 1876-1877: The Military View; Washita: The U.S. Army and the Southern Cheyennes, 1867-1869; Nez Perce Summer, 1877: The U.S. Army and the Nee-Me-Poo Crisis; The Guns of Independence: The Siege of Yorktown, 1781; and most recently, Beyond Bear’s Paw: The Nez Perce Indians in Canada. He resides in Colorado.
